It may not exactly be a whale of a tale, but “tokyo fish story” is certainly a savory little dramatic morsel.

Kimber Lee”s small and tasty tale of a sushi master from a bygone age is steeped in the precise and elegant rituals and traditions of Japanese food. Wryly directed by Kirsten Brandt in its regional premiere at TheatreWorks, it”s a 90-minute fable about food, family and fate. If the new play doesn”t yet qualify as a full and hearty theatrical meal, it”s a very promising appetizer of things to come.

Sushi master Koji (Francis Jue) has a yen for the past, a time when his wife was still alive and customers flocked to his old-school Tokyo sushi bar. A once famous “shokunin,” or sushi rock star, he will not compromise his zeal for quality. When overfishing depletes the choices at the wharf, he foregoes blue fin tuna entirely rather than accept second class fish. Certainly he would never mess with tradition simply to suit the fickle tastes of today”s diner, barking “I do not serve (epithet) happy meals” to his ever more put upon staff.

Meet Nobu (Linden Tailor), a brash millennial whose hip-hop style naturally clashes with Koji”s stoic demeanor, long suffering but brilliant protge Takashi (James Seol) and the badass newbie Ama (Nicole Javier), a woman who”s eager to topple the male-dominated sushi hierarchy. She”s had it with chauvinists who believe that women”s hands are too warm to slice and dice with the best of them.

Takashi also knows that his mentor is out of touch with the now but he respects him too much to push, even when the business gets slammed by the dreck-purveying competition. The trend du jour sushi place down the street is running Koji into the ground one undiscerning customer at a time but he can”t let go of the past. He still doesn”t trust his apprentice, although the fellow has put 20 years in at the foot of the master. In this rigid power structure, underlings are only allowed to massage octopus and wash rice for years before they can even get near a knife.

Jue, a Broadway vet and TheatreWorks favorite also frequently seen on television (“The Good Wife”), etches Koji with an exact measure of dignity and sadness. In the lovely opening tableau, Koji seems to pedal his bicycle through the air, his thoughts lost in the otherworldly. But despite Jue”s sensitive performance, the play doesn”t yet have enough layers and flavors to give the narrative a sense of complexity.

Seol digs deep to try and flesh out Takashi, an underwritten character whose relationship to the Koji empire feels too cagily constructed at this point. Takashi”s selflessness and diligence just don”t make sense for most of the play.

Brandt, formerly of San Jose Rep, lets the pace become so meditative that it”s actually slow and the play doesn”t get to make the most of Lee”s key ingredients. It”s the explosive characters, the Jedi wannabe Nobu and the fiery feminist Ama, that bring the most pungency to the narrative, but their subplots still feel tentative and unsure. Long leisurely pauses, framed by gentle stage pictures, undercut the bite of the comic moments and the wistful elements never cut close enough to the bone. Right now the poetic minimalism of the scenic design (by Wilson Chin) feels more complete than the text.

Developed at Theatreworks as part of its 2014 new play festival, “tokyo fish story” still has all the makings of a satisfying repast, it just needs to steep a little longer and let the characters come into their own.